docspec-http
Library providing an Axum-based HTTP server that wraps a DocSpec conversion pipeline. Designed for embedding in custom binaries or running via the unified docspec http subcommand.
Send markdown (Content-Type: text/markdown), HTML (Content-Type: text/html), or DOCX (Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document), receive BlockNote JSON (default), HTML (Accept: text/html), oxa.dev JSON (Accept: application/vnd.oxa+json), or Pandoc native (Accept: application/vnd.pandoc.native). The underlying DocSpec pipeline is streaming, but this v1 HTTP wrapper buffers the request body and the conversion output in memory before responding. End-to-end streaming over HTTP is planned for a future version. For now, request size scales with available memory.
HTML is paragraph-only. The HTML reader currently parses
<p>elements only, and the HTML writer currently emits only paragraph events. Other HTML input elements and non-paragraph output events (headings, lists, tables, formatting, etc.) are silently dropped. See docspec-html-reader and docspec-html-writer.
When to Use This Crate
Use docspec-http directly when you're embedding the HTTP server into your own binary or need programmatic control over server startup, configuration, or telemetry initialization.
For end users who want a running HTTP server without writing Rust code, install docspec-cli and run docspec http.
Quick Start
[]
= "1.5"
= { = "1", = ["full"] }
use ;
async
Once the server is running, send documents with curl:
# Convert Markdown to BlockNote JSON
# Convert HTML to BlockNote JSON
# Convert DOCX to BlockNote JSON
Public API
| Item | Kind | Description |
|---|---|---|
serve(config: ServerConfig) |
async fn | Start the HTTP server with the given configuration. Runs until SIGINT or SIGTERM. |
ServerConfig |
struct | Server bind configuration: host: String, port: u16. |
cli::Args |
struct | Clap-derived argument struct for --host and --port. Useful when building a CLI that delegates to this library. |
init_telemetry(dsn: Option<&str>) |
fn | Initialize Sentry integration. Call before serve() if you want error reporting. |
init_tracing() |
fn | Initialize the tracing subscriber (stderr, INFO, pretty format). Call before serve(). |
TelemetryGuard |
struct | Drop guard returned by init_telemetry(). Keep alive for the duration of the process to ensure Sentry flushes on exit. |
Endpoints
| Method | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
| POST | /conversion | Convert markdown, HTML, or DOCX to BlockNote (default), HTML, oxa.dev JSON, or Pandoc native |
| OPTIONS | /conversion | Preflight / allowed methods |
| GET | /health | Liveness check |
| HEAD | /health | Liveness check (no body) |
| OPTIONS | /health | Allowed methods |
| GET | /metrics | Prometheus metrics in exposition format 0.0.4 |
Request / Response Headers
X-Request-ID: Generated (UUID v4) if the request omits it. Echoed back unchanged if present.
X-Trace-ID: Echoed back if present. Never generated by the server.
Cache-Control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidate on every response, including errors.
Error Responses
All errors use RFC 7807 Problem Details JSON (application/problem+json; charset=utf-8).
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 400 | Empty body or invalid UTF-8 |
| 404 | Unknown path |
| 405 | Wrong method (response includes Allow header) |
| 406 | Accept header excludes all supported output types |
| 415 | Content-Type must be text/markdown, text/html, or application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| 422 | Input parse error (malformed markdown, HTML, or DOCX) |
| 500 | Internal conversion error |
Accepted Accept values for /conversion: text/html (HTML), application/vnd.oxa+json (oxa.dev), application/vnd.pandoc.native (Pandoc native), application/vnd.docspec.blocknote+json, application/vnd.blocknote+json (BlockNote alias), application/*, or */*. Wildcards and missing Accept default to BlockNote for back-compat. Anything else returns 406.
Deployment Notes
TLS: Use a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy). The server speaks plain HTTP.
CORS: Use a reverse proxy. No CORS headers are added.
Auth: Use a reverse proxy or upstream gateway.
Body size: No limit. Large documents are accepted. DoS risk is accepted. Both the request body and the conversion output are held in memory for the duration of the request.
Request timeout: No timeout. Slow clients can hang a connection indefinitely.
Logging
Logs go to stderr at INFO level in pretty format. There are no flags to change the log level or format.
Observability
docspec-http integrates with Sentry for error reporting.
Activation is fully opt-in via environment variables — the binary has zero Sentry
overhead when no DSN is configured.
Activation
Set ONE of the following to enable Sentry:
DOCSPEC_SENTRY_DSN— docspec-specific override (preferred)SENTRY_DSN— Sentry's standard convention (fallback)
If both are set, DOCSPEC_SENTRY_DSN wins. An empty string or malformed DSN is
treated as "not set" — the server starts normally and logs a warning to stderr.
Configuration (all optional)
These follow Sentry's standard conventions:
SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT— environment name (default:production)SENTRY_RELEASE— release identifier (default: auto,docspec-http@<version>)SENTRY_SAMPLE_RATE— error sample rate[0.0, 1.0](default:1.0)SENTRY_TRACES_SAMPLE_RATE— performance trace sample rate[0.0, 1.0](default:0.0, traces disabled)
What is captured
| Signal | Captured? |
|---|---|
500 Internal Server Error (HttpError::Internal) |
yes (event) |
422 Unprocessable Entity (HttpError::Unprocessable) |
yes (event) |
| Other 4xx responses | no |
| Panics | yes (event) |
tracing::error! calls |
yes (event) |
tracing::warn! calls |
yes (breadcrumb) |
tracing::info!/debug! calls |
yes (breadcrumb) |
| Performance transactions | only if SENTRY_TRACES_SAMPLE_RATE > 0 |
Privacy
docspec-http does NOT send the following to Sentry:
- Request bodies (markdown, HTML, or DOCX documents)
- Response bodies (BlockNote JSON, HTML, oxa.dev JSON, or Pandoc native)
- PII (Sentry default:
send_default_pii = false) - DSN values (never logged or echoed)
Sentry's default header redaction (Authorization, Cookie, etc.) is preserved.
Each captured event is tagged with request_id (UUID v4) and trace_id
(X-Trace-ID header value, if present) for correlation with logs.
Wire Contract
Mirrors github.com/docspecio/api v3.0.2 where feasible: same endpoint path, RFC 7807 errors, X-Request-ID/X-Trace-ID header handling. Diverges in supported conversions.
Graceful Shutdown
The server handles SIGINT and SIGTERM. In-flight requests complete before the process exits.
Metrics
docspec-http exposes a Prometheus metrics endpoint on the same port as the main API.
Endpoint: GET /metrics
Format: Prometheus exposition format 0.0.4 (text/plain; version=0.0.4; charset=utf-8)
Auth: None. The endpoint is internal-only. See Security below.
Metric Catalog
| Name | Type | Labels | Description | Buckets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
docspec_http_requests_total |
counter | method, path, status |
Total HTTP requests received | — |
docspec_http_request_duration_seconds |
histogram | method, path, status |
HTTP request latency in seconds | 0.005, 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 |
docspec_http_request_body_bytes |
histogram | input_mime_type |
HTTP request body size in bytes, labeled by input MIME type | 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600, 51200, 102400, 204800 |
docspec_conversions_total |
counter | result, error_class, input_mime_type, output_mime_type |
Total document conversions, labeled by result, error class, and input/output MIME type | — |
docspec_conversion_duration_seconds |
histogram | result, input_mime_type, output_mime_type |
Document conversion duration in seconds, labeled by result and input/output MIME type | 0.005, 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 |
docspec_conversion_output_bytes (NEW) |
histogram | input_mime_type, output_mime_type |
Document conversion output size in bytes (success only) | 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600, 51200, 102400, 204800 |
Label Values
result: success, client_error, server_error
error_class: body_not_utf8, empty_body, internal, method_not_allowed, not_acceptable, not_found, unprocessable, unsupported_media_type, none (only when result=success)
input_mime_type: text/markdown (the request's Content-Type matched the markdown reader), text/html (the request's Content-Type matched the HTML reader), application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document (the request's Content-Type matched the DOCX reader), unsupported (Content-Type header present but not a supported input format), none (Content-Type header absent).
output_mime_type: application/vnd.docspec.blocknote+json (conversion succeeded; output produced by the BlockNote writer), text/html (conversion succeeded; output produced by the HTML writer), application/vnd.oxa+json (conversion succeeded; output produced by the oxa.dev writer), application/vnd.pandoc.native (conversion succeeded; output produced by the Pandoc native writer), none (no output produced — any error path).
path: matched route template (/conversion, /health) or unknown for fallback handlers
status: numeric HTTP status code as a string (e.g., "200", "422")
method: HTTP method as a string (e.g., "GET", "POST")
Cardinality Guarantees
path is bounded to {"/conversion", "/health", "unknown"}. error_class is bounded to 9 values. result is bounded to 3 values. Per-request identifiers (X-Request-ID, X-Trace-ID) are never used as labels. input_mime_type is bounded to 5 values (text/markdown, text/html, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, unsupported, none). output_mime_type is bounded to 5 values (application/vnd.docspec.blocknote+json, text/html, application/vnd.oxa+json, application/vnd.pandoc.native, none). Both come from a fixed set of &'static str constants in the source — never from raw header values.
Scrape Model
Each pod maintains its own in-memory metrics. Prometheus scrapes each pod independently. No inter-pod communication is required. Aggregate across pods using PromQL.
Upkeep runs every 5 seconds, keeping histogram internal state bounded.
The /metrics route is mounted outside the API middleware stack, so it does not include the global Cache-Control header used by API responses.
The body-size histogram (docspec_http_request_body_bytes) only records bodies that passed Content-Type and Accept validation. Rejected requests are not counted.
The output-bytes histogram (docspec_conversion_output_bytes) only records observations for successful conversions. Failed conversions do not produce output, so no observation is recorded.
Example PromQL Queries
Per-pod request rate:
rate(docspec_http_requests_total[5m])
Aggregate p99 latency across all pods:
histogram_quantile(0.99, sum by (le) (rate(docspec_http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])))
Error rate broken down by error class:
rate(docspec_conversions_total{result!="success"}[5m])
Body-size p95:
histogram_quantile(0.95, sum by (le) (rate(docspec_http_request_body_bytes_bucket[5m])))
Body-size p95 by input format:
histogram_quantile(0.95, sum by (le, input_mime_type) (rate(docspec_http_request_body_bytes_bucket[5m])))
Conversion success rate by input format:
sum by (input_mime_type) (rate(docspec_conversions_total{result="success"}[5m]))
/ sum by (input_mime_type) (rate(docspec_conversions_total[5m]))
Security
/metrics has no authentication. It's intended for internal scraping only. Deploy behind a private overlay network or a Kubernetes NetworkPolicy that restricts access to your Prometheus pods.